Thursday, April 12, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2009 in the hallway of the pediatric care units at the Hospital. To my faithful readers, you may be able to guess immediately what was happening in this picture. To others, it may just look bizarre. But this was a scene out of a typical physical therapy session with Mattie. Anna, Mattie's physical therapist, (with the purple scrubs) is a stellar professional. Anna quickly learned that with Mattie, she had to make therapy interesting, challenging, and fun otherwise, it wouldn't capture his attention. Mind you therapy is also hard work and can be painful, therefore, most children need incentives to do it. You can't rationalize with children in the same way as you would an adult. Mattie had several therapy partners in crime. Behind Mattie, in the picture, pushing the IV, is of course Linda (Mattie's Child Life specialist). The next crucial person in this equation was Meg. Meg is the young woman all the way on the right in the white shirt. Meg was a Child Life intern at the Hospital who understood Mattie immediately when she met him. Meg was a force, not unlike Mattie! Meg became Mattie's racing partner. She would pretend to race with him around the unit, in order to get him to walk and use his walker, which he hated. Yet Mattie enjoyed the camaraderie, and Meg was excellent at hamming it up, and egging him on. We all need a "Meg" when doing physical therapy. It is scenes like this which illustrate one of the many reasons why Mattie Miracle feels it is imperative to support Child Life.
Quote of the day: Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily. ~ Sally Koch
Like Koch's quote so eloquently states, it is the small things that truly matter. I small gesture like holding a door open for a person, smiling at someone, sending a friend an email, or helping in some other small way can make the difference in someone's day. Today I had lunch with my friend Christine (Campbell's mom). A break both of us needed, and most likely we wouldn't have taken without the support of the other. Christine and I both like food and we tried a new restaurant together, shared a ton of food, and had a good time catching up.
At lunch, Christine took out a chocolate bar from her purse and gave it to me. She wasn't giving me the chocolate, on the contrary her son, Campbell was the giver of the treat. Campbell donates to the Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation every year on Mattie's birthday, however, in addition to his financial contribution, he also wanted me to know that he supports me. What better way than by giving me chocolate. I don't know about you, but to me this is a beautiful and very meaningful gesture from a nine year old. A gesture I won't forget anytime soon.
Lunch was the highlight of my day. Because for the majority of the day, I have been battling a wild headache. It started while I was on vacation and it hasn't subsided. The headache is so severe that it is hard to keep my eyes open. In addition, Patches (our cat) is not doing well, and keeping us up throughout the night. Despite being in a fatigued state, I have a licensure board meeting tomorrow, and had to read through a ton of ethical cases this afternoon. So I am signing off for now in hopes that I feel better tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment